Raymark was a prominent US manufacturer of asbestos-containing products. Lots of waste was tossed out in expedient fashion. Today, Raymark has been through one of nation's badly done bankruptcy processes, and now that manufacturing waste and history produces many governmental costs and fears, as illustrated by this newspaper article written by Britanny Lyte from the ctpost. A parallel timeline for Raymark is here.
Law professors and amicus briefs are very much a part of the litigation industry. A recent example is here from am amicus brief on ATS issues. Now, here's this new Opinio Juris post/essay with thoughts from a larger article on when and how law professors should or should not participate in amicus briefs. The post includes links to other related writings and blog posts.
Further questions also can be raised. Should amicus briefs be viewed as "sponsored research?" Should there be disclosure of all past and current economic interests?
The litigation industry today magnet stars. Erin Brokovich is one - she attracts calls from angry, scared people, and she has relationships with law firms. This newspaper article describes a recent meeting between Ms. Brokovich, plaintiff's lawyers and potential clients. The topic is litigation regarding groundwater allegedly polluted by chemicals made by Shell Oil. According to the article, 300 people attended, and 75 or more took packets of paper about hiring counsel.
Good, bad or otherwise, these meetings are one way that lawsuits are started.
"Secret arbitrations." Good, bad or otherwise, Delaware's famed Chancery Court last year adopted rules permitting secret arbitrations conducted by the chancery judges, for significant fees. Now, an NGO has filed suit challenging the rules and demanding public disclosure of the records of the proceedings. The original AP article with the story is here, and is by Randall Chase. AmLaw Daily followed up this morning in this post by David Bario, with links to the Delaware rules and the lawsuit.
Some will say this is a non-event because private ADR groups make it a business to conduct secret arbitrations, and so why not involve courts. Some will say this more of a race to the bottom by Delaware - a prior post is here on Delaware tax policy, and here is a post on Professor Lynn LoPucki's 2005 book, Courting Failure: How Competition for Big Cases is Corrupting the Bankruptcy Courts. Some will say this is another way to generate business for the state, the Chancery Court, and for Delaware lawyers who are part of its litigation industry. Indeed, perhaps that's been said already in this quote of a statement attributed to Chancellor Leo Strine, Jr., as published in the article by Randall Chase:
"Attorney General Beau Biden's office, which represents state agencies in lawsuits, declined to comment. It instead issued a statement that it attributed to Chancellor Leo Strine Jr., head of the Court of Chancery.
Strine said that the law establishing the secret proceedings was designed to ensure that Delaware remains "the most attractive domicile in the world for the formation of business entities."
"Throughout American history, it has long been recognized that not all aspects of the judicial process are subject to public access and the courts of this state regularly mediate disputes among citizens, including businesses, and can only do so effectively if the confidentiality of the process is respected," Strine said.
Strine noted that public access to the courts has been historically limited in cases dealing with family matters such as child custody and guardianships. He also noted that state lawmakers approved similar secret arbitration for business disputes in Superior Court last year.
The bills, which passed both chambers of the General Assembly unanimously and were signed by Gov. Jack Markell, were intended "to advance compelling public policy interests related to the our state's economic vitality," Strine said.
The Chancery Court charges a fee of $12,000 for filing an arbitration petition and a daily fee of $6,000 for each day after the first day that a judge is engaged in arbitration.
Markell spokesman Brian Selander had little comment on the lawsuit, other than to note that the legislation passed unanimously."
As described here in an Australian newspaper article, the James Hardie appeal is underway regarding disclosure issues regarding its asbestos risks and plans for managing the situation. The case is one of two important cases on appeal in Australia. For more background on the issues, see this long prior post or any of the many posts indexed under James Hardie.
An issue on appeal is whether ASIC (the Australian version of the SEC) should have called as a witness an outside lawyer to James Hardie. The newspaper article puts it this way:
"The appeal court found that ASIC had failed to call key witness David Robb, a former partner of Allens Arthur Robinson and one of James Hardie's main external legal advisers.
The court found Mr Robb would have been able to testify about whether the directors signed off on the misleading statement about the company's ability to fund asbestos claims."
Thorax is an international medical journal, and is noted here because one of its October 2011 issues included a trio of articles on smoking among young people and its relationship to movies showing smoking. The articles are here, here, and here. Pasted below is the abstract from this article finding a cross-cultural study finding a positive correlation between teen age smoking and the portrayal of smoking in movies. One might debate the research methods, but the findings are provocative, especially for those of us who are parents of teen-agers, and see some of the kids making the mistake of lighting up.
There also is a related a podcast, which is here. The podcast introduction states:
"We were delighted to speak to Professor John Britton about the research published in the October issue of Thorax, by his and other groups, on smoking in the young.
John is a chest physician, an epidemiologist and a former editor of Thorax. He is the director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at the University of Nottingham. John has been a giant in tobacco research. He chaired the influential RCP Tobacco Advisory Group and played a major role in making the case for banning smoking in public places. Arguably, he has done more than anyone else in this country to limit tobacco exposure. We applaud his contribution."
_______________________________________________________________________________
Aim To investigate whether the association between exposure to smoking in movies and smoking among youth is independent of cultural context.
Method Cross-sectional survey of 16 551 pupils recruited in Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Scotland with a mean age of 13.4 years (SD=1.18) and an equal gender distribution. School-based surveys were conducted between November 2009 and June 2010. Using previously validated methods, exposure to movie smoking was estimated from the 250 top-grossing movies of each country (years 2004–2009) and related to ever smoking.
Results Overall, 29% of the sample had tried smoking. The sample quartile (Q) of movie smoking exposure was significantly associated with the prevalence of ever smoking: 14% of adolescents in Q1 had tried smoking, 21% in Q2, 29% in Q3 and 36% in Q4. After controlling for age, gender, family affluence, school performance, television screen time, number of movies seen, sensation seeking and rebelliousness and smoking within the social environment (peers, parents and siblings), the adjusted ORs for having tried smoking in the entire sample were 1.3 (95% CI 1.1 to 1.5) for adolescents in Q2, 1.6 (95% CI 1.4 to 1.9) for Q3 and 1.7 (95% CI 1.4 to 2.0) for Q4 compared with Q1. The adjusted relationship between ever smoking and higher movie smoking exposure levels was significant in all countries with a non-linear association in Italy and Poland.
Conclusions The link between smoking in movies and adolescent smoking is robust and transcends different cultural contexts. Limiting young people's exposure to movie smoking could have important public health implications.
Reputation risk arises in so many ways. A few weeks ago, headlines announced that various Libyan government offices had been abandoned, and then rebels went through records. One set of records related to the Libyan regime spying on the email of its citizens. The headlines and stories identified a subsidiary (Amesys) of a well known French company (Bull) as apparently having supplied spying devices to the now unseated Gaddafi regime. Those records and headlines are now turning into would-be criminal and civil litigation in France. Opinio Juris has the story here, albiet brief. The would be litigation arises from a complaint by a human rights group - FIDH. A slightly longer version of the story is here at the FIDH website.
Uncertainty. Civil trial lawyers know a little something about uncertainty from waiting for judges and juries. Imagine, however, life and death uncertainty. Imagine journeying through 21 years of occurrences and remissions arising from indolent grade III lymphoma. Imagine enduring 9 courses of treatment to stay alive for those 21 years. Imagine taking that experience, and turning it into books, as well as an always succinct and powerful blog: On Healthy Survivorship. Imagine writing insightful medical journal articles and speaking to other doctors about how to better work with cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones.
You've been imagining the uncertainty of life as Dr. Wendy Harpham. Her wonderful blog is here. Her more general website is here. Dr. Harpham's six books are listed here. And here is her October 18, 2011 blog post to celebrate having reached her 57th birthday.
How can doctors best help patients manage cancer and uncertainty? What it is that patients feel, and that trial lawyers need to understand in some way? Dr. Harpham recently addressed the subject here, in the first of a series of articles she's writing for a professional publication, Oncology Times, in an article titled: View From The Other Side of the Stethoscope: Managing Uncertainty (Part 1) Background. The full text is here.
Dr. Harpham's column starts with her history - her story. It's below. Imagine how it's felt for 21 years:
"My Story
In 1990 I was diagnosed with Stage III indolent lymphoma. All the textbooks described inevitable recurrence, with successively shorter remissions leading to death. At the time, the median life expectancy of patients with this lymphoma was about seven years. A second recurrence within two and a half years dropped my prognosis to two years. Since entering a clinical trial to treat my third recurrence, no statistics have been available for patients like me.
I've received nine separate courses of various therapies, the last of which ended in November 2007. My disease is currently in remission.
The rest of her article is here.
Here is good news for current and future victims of dread diseases and injuries - the EU has rejected patents on embryonic stem cells. The full story is in this post on Patent Docs. Here's the introduction:
"The European Court of Justice (ECJ) today rendered its decision regarding the patent-eligibility of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in Europe, and as widely expected has heeded the recommendation of the court's advocate general that hESCs are not patent-eligible subject matter (see"European Court of Justice Considers Embryonic Stem Cell Ban").
The case began in 2004, when Greenpeace sued in German federal court over a German patent to the University of Bonn involving methods for deriving neural cells from hESCs (DE 197568664 C1). While German laws regarding stem cell research have been characterized as the "most restrictive in Europe," such research is permitted provided that it is performed with pluripotent (rather than totipotent) cells, using cell lines imported from abroad and only cell lines that were made prior to May 2007. Nevertheless, Greenpeace argued that claims to methods for using hESCs were "immoral and against public order," provisions of European law generally that define subject matter not eligible for patent (there is no corresponding provision under U.S. law)."
*****
Researchers continue to investigate why so many mesotheliomas are showing up in taconite miners. The Taconite Workers Health Study is online here, and is ongoing in Minnesota for workers from the Minnesota mountain ranges. The story is here from John Myers of the Duluth News Tribune.
Here are key excerpts from the article:
"The number of Iron Rangers who died of mesothelioma has reached 82, up from 63 when last reported by state health officials in 2010.
Health officials say they found the additional cases by checking death records in other states for former Iron Range residents who moved out of Minnesota.
That was the report Monday from the University of Minnesota team that is heading the long-term Taconite Workers Health Study. The study, which started in 2008, could be completed as early as mid-2012.
Dr. Jeffrey Mandel, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health and lead researcher in the Iron Range study, said a “back-of-the-envelope” analysis shows the mesothelioma rate is considerably higher than it should be.
“But we are still doing the analysis to find out how much so,” Mandel said in a telephone news conference."
What's the link, if any, between a particular bacteria and colon cancer ? No one is quite sure at present, but two labs have now used new tools and research to find parallel evidence of massive amounts of bacteria involved with colon cancer cells. The how and why remain to be discovered. But simply knowing to ask the question is part of the battle. The larger story is here in the NYT, by science writer Gina Kolata. New tools do make a difference.
The Justice Roberts court typically is out to provide certainty for big business, and so it'snot surprising the Court has granted certiorari appeals in two cases presenting issues regarding the scope of corporate liability vis a vis federal law. OpinioJuris has the short story here, and SCOTUS blog's post is here. As always, SCOTUS has a great collection of links to the opinons below, and key briefs.
The corporate aiding and abetting debate goes on at OpinioJuris. This latest post includes a helpful link to and quote from the complaint to put matters into better context. They are:
"Here is paragraph 37 of the Complaint:
Despite the well-documented use of child labor on cocoa farms in Cote d’Ivoire, Defendants not only purchased cocoa from farms and/or farmer cooperatives which they knew or should have known relied on forced child labor in the cultivating and harvesting of cocoa beans, but Defendants provided such farms with the logistical support to do so with little or no restrictions from the government of Cote d’Ivoire."
Continuing a policy that started in the last few years, the Defense Research Institute is once again sponsoring a cross-border seminar in tort litigation - this time in Barcelona on 17 and 18 November. The agenda is here, and the title is The Changing Landscape of International Litigation: Hot Topics.
What are the Hot Topics ? The seminar leads off with class actions, litigation funding and product liability. The panels includes EU lawyers such as Rod Freeman from Lovells (a true expert on EU product liability law) and lawyers from America's Powers & Frost, a staunch backer of all things DRI.
This recent post from the ASU Law Journal for Social Justice - titled The Right to Life - provides a timely reminder of the hypocrisy of many of the so-called "conservatives" who supposedly want "less federal government" in health care. Specifically, the post contrasts current posturing on medical care with the rush of some - including President Bush II - to pass legislation specific to the sad situation involving Terry Schiavo, the woman who was brain dead. Various alleged "conservatives" sought to intervene, waving the banner of a right to life. The Right to Life posts nicely contrasts the prior bannerism to more recent realities, such as the Tea Partiers cheering for the idea of letting a man die.
Here's the introduction to the post - it's well worth a Sunday morning read:
"“Today, I signed into law a bill that will allow Federal courts to hear a claim by or on behalf of Terri Schiavo for violation of her rights relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life. In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. This presumption is especially critical for those like Terri Schiavo who live at the mercy of others. I appreciate the bipartisan action by the Members of Congress to pass this bill. I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities.”
- Statement of President George W. Bush on signing P.L. 109-3 titled “An Act For the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo.”
In 2005, the US Congress passed a bill to save one woman’s life when her husband decided to take her off life support after she had been in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years. A short six years later, a crowd at a Republican presidential debate cheered the hypothetical idea of letting a young man without health insurance die even though he had a curable condition. That concept became a stark reality for a young man in Phoenix, Arizona who was told to seek treatment in Mexico because he did not qualify for health insurance in the United States."
Canada is not alone in seeking jobs through asbestos mining. Here is an article on political upheaval as connected to the Shabani Mine, which is said to contain enough asbestos for 17 more years of production. Articles on history related to the mine are here, here, and here. Turner & Newall once owned and ran the mine, as described here. Drawing from the Turner & Newall papers, Jock McCulloch wrote this detailed article on how Turner ran the mine. A later, broader paper by McCulloch is here. More Turner history is here. There also is a government study of the mine.
As to corporate liability under ATS for aiding and abetting a tort, the debate goes on here, here and here at OpinioJuris as to the amicus brief first noted here. The issue in short is whether Nestle can be held liable under the ATS if it knew it was contracting with persons who were violating local labor laws, or whether it also must be proven that Nestle intended its contracting to help further the violations of local labor laws. That issue includes sub-issues regarding the degree of international consensus required to establish a rule of international law and how one proves up an international consensus. The issues plainly are important to companies contracting with known law breakers.
For scientists, data is key. So, it's relevant to note that we are close to the day of commercially managed but freely accessible DNA databases in the "cloud." Set out below are key excerpts from this article by Arik Hesseldahl at All Things Digital regarding a start-up known as DNAnexus.
Beyond science, think also about the possibilities for litigation. As GE might say, imagine the possibilities when data is widely and freely shared along with medical histories which are real but blinded to preserve privacy. Thus, for example, think about the possibilities for asbestos litigation. Imagine a database with DNA analysis from all the mesothelioma pathology samples held by Dr. Victor Roggli at Duke. Or, imagine plaintiff's firms obtaining client permissions, and then collaborating to provide genomic data from all of their mesothelioma patients. Or, if the plaintiff's firms will not take that step, imagine chapter 11 asbestos trusts requiring submission of tissue as a condition for collecting money from the trusts. Or, perhaps insurers might even break down and spend money on such an effort. They should, because finding cures for cancers ultimately will be cheaper than paying the bills that will come due when health insurance claims and tort litigation increase in waves as global cancer rates double by 2020 and triple by 2030.
Some key excerpts from the article on the DNA database effort by Google and DNAnexus:
"Google, he said, will collaborate with DNAnexus to provide access to a huge archive of publicly available DNA information. The archive will take over where the federal government’s National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is leaving off, after being shut down because of budget cuts.
DNAnexus and Google have teamed up to take over that database and will continue to provide access — for free — to medical researchers. It will now live in Google’s cloud, and researchers will now have a new, easy-to-use interface for accessing it. It represents the largest single dataset ever put on Google’s infrastructure by a third party.
Don’t mourn the government effort. DNA databases are probably better handled by the private sector, Sundquist says, mainly because sequencing a genome, which used to require NASA-sized multibillion-dollar budgets that only big governments can sustain, is no longer so complicated or expensive."
***
“The reason we started the company is that we started to see that DNA sequencing was getting about 10 time cheaper every 18 months,” he told me. “Ten years ago it cost about $3 billion to sequence a human genome. Now you can do it for about $4,000. It’s like Moore’s Law on crack. In a few years it will be less than $1,000.”
That kind of cost reduction means there’s likely going to be an explosion in the amount of DNA information collected, the kind of surge that Google is uniquely capable of scaling up to manage. “We’re moving from a world where practically no one has their DNA sequences to a world where nearly everyone does, and it just becomes a part of your medical record,” Sundquist says. “The question is, how do you manage all that. It’s one of the biggest and most complex sets of data in the world.”
***
Who would pay for it? Anyone who needs DNA sequencing work done: Medical researchers, drug companies, medical doctors. DNAnexus will do the heavy lifting associated with getting the sequencing done. Beyond that, it will manage the ever-growing trove of DNA data and provide all the computing tools that those customers need in the course of doing their work, via a SaaS platform. It already has customers in academia, at places like Stanford University and Harvard University; at pharma companies; and even practicing medical pros in their day-to-day practices, using DNA information to improve their health care and diagnosis problems.
Pleural plaques are back in the news in the UK due to an important new opinion. As covered in several prior posts (some are here, here and here), Scotland reacted to the Rothwell decision by passing a statute to reinstate damages for non-malignant conditions, such as pleural plaques. Various insurers challenged the law. The insurers now have lost their appeal to the Supreme Court. A BBC article is here, and the opinion is here.
My personal view is that paying non-malignant conditions is poor social policy because it diverts finite resources - money, medical attention, science, and legal attention - away from persons suffering from malignant conditions. Go here for a detailed outline I submitted to the English government when it held a consultation after Rothwell. In short, I urged the government to reject paying plaques claims, and to fund more scientific research on cancer. Ultimately, the English government took those steps as it increased scientific funding and chose not to overturn Rothwell, as covered here and here.
Go here for links to a wider article on plaques claiming across Europe.
Here is a new article on continuing growth in the asbestos-cement business in India.
More treasure stories related to Odyssey Marine Exploration. This prior post covered an 11th Circuit ruling on sovereign immunity in a lawsuit between Odyssey Marine and Spain as to rights to treasure from a sunken ship said to have been on a sovereign mission. Now the NYT has a story by William J. Broad regarding two additional wrecks Odyssey is recovering with valuable silver bullion as cargo. These wrecks are being raised by contract agreement with the British government; the split is 80% for the salvagers and 20% for the government. Additional video is here.
What a cool way to earn a living.
Erionite is an asbestos-like mineral, and has caused devastating mesothelioma clusters in three towns in Turkey. Now the mineral is popping up more often online as a danger in the US, as in this article. It's perhaps the fifth article I've seen in a month, and one is part of a "mesothelioma awareness" website. One wonders if a litigation industry effort is underway.
OpinioJuris includes three posts on corporate aiding and abetting liability in the context of an appeal to the Ninth Circuit in Doe vs. Nestlé. One post links to and previews an amicus brief written by various law professors for the National Association of Manufacturers. They are Professors Samuel Estreicher, John McGinnis, Michael Ramsey, Mark Weisburd, Ernest Young and Julian Ku. That brief of course opposes any “extension” of corporate liability. Two other posts - here (disagrees with reliance on Visaljavic) and here (disagrees with reliance on Rome Statute) - are by Kevin Jon Heller, and contradict the legal arguments advanced by NAM. As frequent readers may recall, Mr. Heller's views were noted before on GlobalTort - here and here. It will interesting to see the outcome.
UK "legal reform" is now in effect. Many lawyers lacking specialty niches will now experience the commoditization already experienced by many doctors lacking specialties. The BBC has the story here. And, Nathan Koppel of the WSJ blog covered it with a apt song quote and an apt picture for so-called "Tesco Law." .
The legal reform process has been building in the UK since the early 2000s. Here is a UK government webpage that collects many of the relevant papers and draft laws that were part of the journey to the new revolution. The key paper was this 2003 Clementi Report.
AmLaw's Litigation Daily includes this informative post on recent Delaware developments in which plaintiff's lawyers are effectively blocking some of the conflicts of interest in some corporate m & a transactions.
Two significant, upcoming securities law cases in Australia are relevant to corporations and their officers and directors coping with mass tort liabilities and risks, and issues related to corrections/changes to prior disclosures. Both are cases that ASIC - Australia's SEC - will soon argue to the Supreme Court in Australia.
The second case involves a different company that allegedly made misleading statements about the strength of legal agreements. Again, more specifics are provided through an article in The Australian. Article excerpts are after the jump.
This post on the Patent Doc blog brings the news that legislators in Australia are seeking to amend the patent statutes to explicitly prohibit gene patents. Since the Patent Docs are lawyers for pharma, they of course highlight the fact that a committee declined to embrace the bill. But they also were objective enough to link to this article from the Australian which highlights the sponsor's intent to bring the issues forward regardless of the committee vote. According to the article in the Australian, gene patents are opposed by an array of interest groups, including advocacy groups for cancer patients and survivors.
Here in the states, the issue is moving towards the US Supreme Court as the Myriad case heads into the certiorari process. As readers may recall, the Obama Administration has wisely opposed gene patents, as described in this prior post. The district court proceedings were covered here. Complete coverage of the Myriad case is found at a great blog known as the Genomics Law Report - look at the upper right hand corner of the home page.
Yesterday, cancer took Steve Jobs, one of the world's most creative, wealthy and powerful men; a man able to summon and invoke all the best we presently have to offer for his specific disease. Yesterday, in the US alone, cancer killed another 1,499 Americans. All 1,500 were spouses, lovers, or children, and are irreplaceable in their own circles of family and friends. Overall, cancer is either the first or second leading cause of death in the United Sates, as illustrated by these numbers from the CDC.
Globally, cancer is now calculated as the leading cause of death. The following data are drawn from this ScienceDaily summary, and illustrate the stunning toll, which is projected to double by 2020, and then triple by 2030:
"According to the new report, the burden of cancer doubled globally between 1975 and 2000. It is estimated that it will double again by 2020 and nearly triple by 2030. This translates to far greater numbers of people living with – and dying from – the disease. The report estimates that there were some 12 million new cancer diagnoses worldwide this year, and more than seven million people will die from the disease. The projected numbers for the year 2030 are 20-26 million new diagnoses and 13-17 million deaths."
Why does the toll grow ? There are many answers, and one of them is that disease rates for some cancers continue to climb, regardless of smoking issues. The chart below illustrates the point - note specifically that the top two lines in the chart tell terrible stories: Inexorably climbing cancer rates for childhood cancers and non-Hodgkins lymphomas.
(1).jpg)
What to do? The study quoted above includes the following recommendations from experts, with emphasis added as to scientific steps:
The six call to action steps issued by the three U.S. organizations include:
Now we have trial by video, sometimes. The Illinois Supreme Court does not allow television in trial courts, but has now explicitly enacted a rule that will sometimes allow use of witness testimony shown by streaming feed from a remote location. Set out below are key excerpts from an article by Patrick Yeagle in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.
SPRINGFIELD — A new Illinois Supreme Court rule now allows live video testimony in civil cases.
On Tuesday, the court announced this rule and another new rule to keep Social Security numbers out of future court documents.
Effective immediately, Illinois courts may allow video streaming of live witness testimony in civil cases under the newly-enacted Rule 241.
The rule stipulates video testimony may be allowed "for good cause shown in compelling circumstances and upon appropriate safeguards."
Attorney Robert A. Clifford, president of The Chicago Bar Association, said courts still prefer in-person testimony, but video testimony can provide input from witnesses who may otherwise not be able to testify.
"You can have an expert sitting in Manhattan or Los Angeles and present them live on a screen," Clifford said.
Video testimony has been used before in Illinois courts, Clifford said, but there was no rule specifically allowing it until now.
"To the extent that it's been done in the past, it was at the agreement of the parties," Clifford said. "Modern trials are going to change and you're going to see more and more of this as time goes on."
Anne M. Oldenburg, president of the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel, said the new rule may make it difficult for juries to determine the credibility of a witness.
"I think there's something more you can gain by seeing a witness; see them walk into a courtroom, see them interact with attorneys," Oldenburg said. "That might give you more of an ability to assess credibility."
She said video conferencing is already used extensively in discovery for civil trials, as well as in civil cases in other states.
"They supposedly have statistics documenting that this will decrease costs and decrease time of trial, so from that perspective, it's a good thing," she said. "But I think it needs to be used carefully. I think the discretion of the judge will be key."
Jerry A. Latherow, president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, said witness credibility shouldn't be a concern.
"We judge the credibility of people we see on the news all the time, so I don't see that as being a problem," Latherow said. "This gives the trier of fact better evidence and puts them in a better position to decide the case."
______________________________________________________________________
The new rule is posted online here. The same text is pasted below:
Self-promotion. Lexis/Nexis seeks input on this and other blogs you may like as to insurance-related issues. If you wish to comment, please see the instructions in the email below, which was sent to me by Lexis/Nexis.
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The nomination and recommendation period for the LexisNexis Top 50 Insurance Law Blogs of 2011 will end on Friday, October 7.
There is still time for your readers and colleagues to show their support for your blog and tell us why you should be included in the Top 50. Our Insurance editors and our Insurance Law Advisory Board will give strong consideration to the comments received when they review all of the nominees and select the Top 50 Insurance Law Blogs of 2011.
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A letter to the editor is the latest act in the saga that goes on in Canada as to a proposed investment in the old Jeffrey asbestos mine which produces chrysotile fibers. The saga highlights the tensions between jobs, investments and risks. As mentioned before, the reporting and articles do not cover key issues, such as whether the chrysotile fibers are "contaminated" by amphibole fibers. And, as covered by this prior post, the prospects of more fiber sales highlight the need to create at least some global rules in a global marketplace. The letter to the editor is set out below:
Why I want to be in the asbestos business
Read Readmore:http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/want+asbestos+business/5503381/story.html#ixzz1ZuFoU9i4
Nobel Prize week started today with the prize in Medicine shared among three researchers who made fundamental discoveries about the immune system. The discoveries provided the basis for some of the transformative medicine taking hold today, such as vaccines to prevent cancer. In short, each of the prize winners discovered a fundamental part of the immune system, and did so through studies that Tea Partiers probably would ridicule because, for example, some of the work included analyzing fruit flies. This award thus illustrates why the nations of the world need to continue to fund fundamental research in biology and related fields. Today's fruit fly findings build tomorrow's preventive and curative medicine.
The Nobel press release is pasted below, and explains the research and outcomes:
2011-10-03
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided that
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2011
shall be divided, with one half jointly to
Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann
for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity
and the other half to
Ralph M. Steinman
for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity
This year's Nobel Laureates have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation.
Scientists have long been searching for the gatekeepers of the immune response by which man and other animals defend themselves against attack by bacteria and other microorganisms. Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann discovered receptor proteins that can recognize such microorganisms and activate innate immunity, the first step in the body's immune response. Ralph Steinman discovered the dendritic cells of the immune system and their unique capacity to activate and regulate adaptive immunity, the later stage of the immune response during which microorganisms are cleared from the body.
The discoveries of the three Nobel Laureates have revealed how the innate and adaptive phases of the immune response are activated and thereby provided novel insights into disease mechanisms. Their work has opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer, and inflammatory diseases.
We live in a dangerous world. Pathogenic microorganisms (bacteria, virus, fungi, and parasites) threaten us continuously but we are equipped with powerful defense mechanisms (please see image below). The first line of defense, innate immunity, can destroy invading microorganisms and trigger inflammation that contributes to blocking their assault. If microorganisms break through this defense line, adaptive immunity is called into action. With its T and B cells, it produces antibodies and killer cells that destroy infected cells. After successfully combating the infectious assault, our adaptive immune system maintains an immunologic memory that allows a more rapid and powerful mobilization of defense forces next time the same microorganism attacks. These two defense lines of the immune system provide good protection against infections but they also pose a risk. If the activation threshold is too low, or if endogenous molecules can activate the system, inflammatory disease may follow.
The components of the immune system have been identified step by step during the 20thcentury. Thanks to a series of discoveries awarded the Nobel Prize, we know, for instance, how antibodies are constructed and how T cells recognize foreign substances. However, until the work of Beutler, Hoffmann and Steinman, the mechanisms triggering the activation of innate immunity and mediating the communication between innate and adaptive immunity remained enigmatic.
Jules Hoffmann made his pioneering discovery in 1996, when he and his co-workers investigated how fruit flies combat infections. They had access to flies with mutations in several different genes including Toll, a gene previously found to be involved in embryonal development by Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Nobel Prize 1995). When Hoffmann infected his fruit flies with bacteria or fungi, he discovered that Toll mutants died because they could not mount an effective defense. He was also able to conclude that the product of the Toll gene was involved in sensing pathogenic microorganisms and Toll activation was needed for successful defense against them.
Bruce Beutler was searching for a receptor that could bind the bacterial product, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which can cause septic shock, a life threatening condition that involves overstimulation of the immune system. In 1998, Beutler and his colleagues discovered that mice resistant to LPS had a mutation in a gene that was quite similar to the Toll gene of the fruit fly. This Toll-like receptor (TLR) turned out to be the elusive LPS receptor. When it binds LPS, signals are activated that cause inflammation and, when LPS doses are excessive, septic shock. These findings showed that mammals and fruit flies use similar molecules to activate innate immunity when encountering pathogenic microorganisms. The sensors of innate immunity had finally been discovered.
The discoveries of Hoffmann and Beutler triggered an explosion of research in innate immunity. Around a dozen different TLRs have now been identified in humans and mice. Each one of them recognizes certain types of molecules common in microorganisms. Individuals with certain mutations in these receptors carry an increased risk of infections while other genetic variants of TLR are associated with an increased risk for chronic inflammatory diseases.
Ralph Steinman discovered, in 1973, a new cell type that he called the dendritic cell. He speculated that it could be important in the immune system and went on to test whether dendritic cells could activate T cells, a cell type that has a key role in adaptive immunity and develops an immunologic memory against many different substances. In cell culture experiments, he showed that the presence of dendritic cells resulted in vivid responses of T cells to such substances. These findings were initially met with skepticism but subsequent work by Steinman demonstrated that dendritic cells have a unique capacity to activate T cells.
Further studies by Steinman and other scientists went on to address the question of how the adaptive immune system decides whether or not it should be activated when encountering various substances. Signals arising from the innate immune response and sensed by dendritic cells were shown to control T cell activation. This makes it possible for the immune system to react towards pathogenic microorganisms while avoiding an attack on the body's own endogenous molecules.
The discoveries that are awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize have provided novel insights into the activation and regulation of our immune system. They have made possible the development of new methods for preventing and treating disease, for instance with improved vaccines against infections and in attempts to stimulate the immune system to attack tumors. These discoveries also help us understand why the immune system can attack our own tissues, thus providing clues for novel treatment of inflammatory diseases.
Bruce A. Beutler was born in 1957 in Chicago, USA. He received his MD from the University of Chicago in 1981 and worked as a scientist at Rockefeller University in New York and the University of Texas in Dallas, where he discovered the LPS receptor. Since 2000 he has been professor of genetics and immunology at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA.
Jules A. Hoffmann was born in Echternach, Luxembourg in 1941. He studied at the University of Strasbourg in France, where he obtained his PhD in 1969. After postdoctoral training at the University of Marburg, Germany, he returned to Strasbourg, where he headed a research laboratory from 1974 to 2009. He has also served as director of the Institute for Molecular Cell Biology in Strasbourg and during 2007-2008 as President of the French National Academy of Sciences.
Ralph M. Steinman was born in 1943 in Montreal, Canada, where he studied biology and chemistry at McGill University. After studying medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, USA, he received his MD in 1968. He has been affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York since 1970, has been professor of immunology at this institution since 1988, and is also director of its Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases.
Key publications: |
| Poltorak A, He X, Smirnova I, Liu MY, Van Huffel C, Du X, Birdwell D, Alejos E, Silva M, Galanos C, Freudenberg M, Ricciardi-Castagnoli P, Layton B, Beutler B. Defective LPS signaling in C3H/HeJ and C57BL/10ScCr mice: Mutations in Tlr4 gene. Science 1998;282:2085-2088. |
| Lemaitre B, Nicolas E, Michaut L, Reichhart JM, Hoffmann JA. The dorsoventral regulatory gene cassette spätzle/Toll/cactus controls the potent antifungal response in drosophila adults. Cell 1996;86:973-983. |
| Steinman RM, Cohn ZA. Identification of a novel cell type in peripheral lymphoid organs of mice. J Exp Med 1973;137:1142-1162. |
| Steinman RM, Witmer MD. Lymphoid dendritic cells are potent stimulators of the primary mixed leukocyte reaction in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1978;75:5132-5136. |
| Schuler G, Steinman RM. Murine epidermal Langerhans cells mature into potent immunostimulatory dendritic cells in vitro. J Exp Med 1985;161:526-546. |
The WSJ includes two new articles on litigation funding, with both by Vanessa O'Connell. The first article covers new, private entrants into the litigation funding market. They are Fulbrook Capital, BlackRobe Capital, and Bentham Capital. The latter two seem to each include a focus on certain types of litigation.
The article also includes an interesting twist. Thus, it mentions that DuPont embraces litigation funding on some occasions, but the US Chamber of Commerce remains opposed to free enterprise having a role in litigation.
The second article describes a Juridica litigation that went south. The loan recipient tried to avoid arbitration by claiming that litigation funding changes the interests in litigation, which of course seems obvious.
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Danny's Tree. A memorial to Danny Host, a 7 year old victim of brain cancer. Danny's death this past February is one small part of cancer's annual death toll of almost 600,000 people in the United States.
Over the next decade, cancer will strike 1.6 million Americans per year. Over a decade, that's more than the populations of the cities (not suburbs) of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Imagine the reaction - and money available - if Al Qaeda could injure 1.6 million Americans per year. 4% of Americans are cancer survivors. Annual cancer rates keep climbing for children and for blood cancers. In fact, there is a blood cancer death every 10 minutes in the United States.
But, despite those depressing numbers, there are real reasons for hope. Who says so? Nobel Prize winner Dr. James Watson, one of the two leaders of the team that explained DNA's double-helix. Go here for his powerful article explaining that mapping the genome and other advances mean that science has made enough progress so that there is now a scientific tool kit that can actually work for some people with some cancers, and can be applied to an increasingly wide range of cancers. Here's the opening paragraph of his article:
"THE National Cancer Institute, which has overseen American efforts on researching and combating cancers since 1971, should take on an ambitious new goal for the next decade: the development of new drugs that will provide lifelong cures for many, if not all, major cancers. Beating cancer now is a realistic ambition because, at long last, we largely know its true genetic and chemical characteristics." (emphasis added).
These are just some of the millions of reasons to speak out and seek better as to cancer treatment and research. So, today, speak out and wear yellow on LIVESTRONG Day.
Here's a story of short-term gain creating a lousy reputation. A Winston-Salem hospital (N.C. Baptist Hospital) is about to start paying off in a class action because it over-charged its employees for health-care insurance premiums. How? The health care was provided by a plan owned by Baptist and another hospital. The hospital charged its employees more for the health care insurance premiums than it charged to employees of other companies.
The hospital apparently took in an extra $ 5 or so million over a period of years. One wonders how it values the negative consequences of the resulting publicity, and how the annual bonus pool is looking for the people who approved the over-charging. Once can also wonder if the hospital was guided by a lawyer who wrote a letter arguing the overcharge "could technically be legally" instead of saying "this is a really bad idea."
Here's the key quote:
"Baptist has denied any wrongdoing. It said the selection of MedCost was a plan-sponsor function, not a fiduciary function, and therefore its actions were not governed by ERISA.
"NCBH alleges that cost is only one factor in a prudence analysis, and that MedCost provided superior service or capabilities in other areas that justified any increase in cost," Baptist said in June 2009.
However, according to the agreement, the plaintiffs' attorneys "obtained reliable documentary evidence to suggest that NCBH had a history of 'self-dealing' with its subsidiary provider network. Indeed, that evidence indicated NCBH was even offering better pricing to outside health plans that used the MedCost network than it was offering its own plan and own employees."
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